Open Access

Smart Open Access compliance tracking, flexible workflows,
and powerful reporting

As the global Open Access (OA) movement continues to evolve, so too does the complexity of managing compliance. Research institutions now face a growing array of mandates from funders, governments, and internal bodies, each with their own unique requirements.

The Open Access Monitor in Symplectic Elements is developed to ensure institutions can meet and track compliance with these evolving OA requirements efficiently and effectively. As a powerful, modular component of Symplectic Elements, the OA Monitor helps institutions manage diverse and evolving OA requirements with ease.

Symplectic Elements allows your researchers to easily deposit publications into open repositories with the push of a button, significantly increasing deposit rates. You can monitor, track, prompt, and report on this process; driving open access engagement and compliance in-line with your institutional policies.

Intelligent data harvesting and easy deposit

Intelligent data harvesting means Symplectic Elements is always working for you in the background, continuously identifying and matching research outputs to populate your publication record. As the metadata of scholarly works is already in Symplectic Elements, full-text deposit becomes as simple as a few mouse clicks.

By supporting multiple, independently configurable policies, the OA Monitor enables flexible workflows and smarter compliance tracking – all while reducing administrative burden and supporting your institutional open access goals.

Open Access that works for you

Measuring engagement with Open Access policies can be time-consuming and difficult. Administrators often spend valuable time chasing researchers, navigating across systems, and managing varied requirements.

The Open Access Monitor helps you:

Guide researchers with homepage prompts tailored by role or department.
Embed deposit advice from JISC’s Open Policy Finder, plus custom guidance.
Track multiple OA routes: Gold, DOAJ, and repository deposits.
Target policies by funder, output type, user group, and more.
Report on reuse licences to meet funder sharing requirements.
Monitor deposit locations and versions for policy alignment.

Integrate with your broader research ecosystem

The Open Access Monitor connects seamlessly to your systems and workflows, ensuring accurate data flow and enabling end-to-end open access management.

We integrate with:

Simplify compliance monitoring across multiple policies

The Open Access Monitor gives institutions real-time insight into engagement across multiple policies – making it easy to identify gaps, take corrective actions, and ensure compliance with policies.

Administrators can quickly visualise engagement levels across departments or groups, take informed action like depositing on behalf of researchers, and highlight high performers as advocates.

Track compliance across multiple OA policies in real time.
Monitor who has deposited what, where, and when.
Flag non-compliant outputs and take corrective action.
Record article-level exceptions and opt-outs in bulk.
Generate compliance reports by policy, funder, researcher, or department.
Delegate tasks with OA-specific staff roles.

Gain clarity and confidence in your reporting

Whether you’re tracking for the REF, NIH Public Access Policy, or ARC mandates, the Open Access Monitor surfaces the right information for the right stakeholders, at the right time. By automating compliance tracking and surfacing open access status clearly, including the OA Monitor as part of your Symplectic Elements solution helps institutions:

Improve the completeness and accuracy of OA data.
Lighten the load on researchers and support teams.
Confidently evidence OA performance to funders, partners, and leadership.

Learn more about how we support the REF

The Francis Crick Institute - Figshare integration

A Pathway to Open Research with Richer Research Profiles

The Francis Crick Institute is using technology to empower its researchers to have richer research profiles and to make it easier for them to publish their papers and data Open Access.

The best-in-class research information management system which brings together Symplectic Elements and Figshare allows them to:

Monitor their publications better
Capture manuscripts earlier to add acknowledgements of grants and all Crick staff contributions
Get a repository that handles both papers and data for open research

Read case study >

Our integrations at work

Loughborough University

Cambridge University

Carnegie Mellon University

California Digital Library

Learn more about Figshare & Elements together

Have more than one repository?

No problem! Elements can be integrated with multiple repositories simultaneously allowing institutions to consolidate deposit and monitoring activities within a single interface.

Don’t see your repository? Contact us!